Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-05-16
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PRIMITIVE COOKING.
eo,ne "reminiscences of Early Days !"
California.
,c..,.t Sorraopondencp

Especial Correspondence
BOSTON. Mays.
NJ tho 15o ono males who in 1880 were
.i.notod On California from all parts OF
Tho world not one in 100 could boil a potato
properly. -, s.oo q
month For the first two years, COOKS oiacA-
smiths and carpenters could make far more
than LAWYERS. People on a pinch could ge'
along without lawyers. They couldn't Will
out cooks.
Many LAWYERS became good cooks, and
stuck TO their adopted calling at $3OO per
month until law practice began to pay. Law
didn't begin to pay until the miners Jurles
stoned hanging men for stealing. Their
hangings cost the county nothing. Some
times, it is true, they hung the wrong man,
as a warning to the right one. But when the
lawyers stopped cooking and got in at their
legitimate work, crime became safer.
Indifferent wretches, who could stir Hour
and water together, fling in a handful OF
yeast powder and scorch this compound on a
frying pan, set up for cooks and made their
$500 per month. 'Flapjacks" were universal.
Within the first year of the raw cookery era
of California hundreds Of amateur cooks
could flip a fapjack on a frying pan by an
imperceptible turn of the wrist and flop every
inch of the unbaked side squarely on tie
pans bottom. A meal Of bull beef
steak, fapjacks and dried apples at
the "Astor house" cost 81. The "Astor'
was an old ships caboose moved
on shore, with brief addition in its rear.
Levy, the landlord, used to hang out the sign
Potatoes today" Potatoes were then o
rarity. There were no eggs, nor hens to lay
them. Mince pies were made of salt beef,
soaked to dead sort of freshness. dried ap-
pies and molasses. They sold at 81 each, and
were not much thicker than cake Of hard
bread. 1t was no great feat there to bite
through four pies if a man could afford it.
Beans were universal In many circles they
had them twenty-one times a week. Most
American cooks would at first put the
pork to boil at the same time as
the beans and with the beans. Then they
wondered why the beans were so hard. Salt
hardens the beams heart. They found out al
last that the pork should not go into the pot
until about fifteen minutes before the beans
come off the fire.
Beans were generally cooked out of doors
in Dutch ovens" The beans cooked while
the boys dug on their claims This peaceful
state Of things lasted till the miners took to
keeping hogs and developed an ambition to
cover the Sierra foothills with countless herds
of swine. The swine would nose around the
cooking beans while the boys were away, and
eventually upset the pot and devour the
beans. Such depredations led to shootings,
sometimes of hogs sometimes of hog owners,
or the hog owner shot the man who shot his
hogs or whom he thought had shot his hogs
Cows also were destructive The COWS
would sometimes eat through our houses, o.
cotton drilling l returned to my home or
Swelts Bar after attending a county conven-
ton and found that COW had eaten through
one side of my house and gone out at the
other, and on the way devoured all my -four
and potatoes 1t was indeed q wrecked
ranch, for she had not been at all nice and
particular while feeding at the expense of a
Democratic delegate. The cattle were crazy
after salt. Anything which had held salt or
tasted Of salt would attract legions of cows
An empty mackerel key, which once unwisely
threw out of doors, brought down from the
hills that night, l should think, about forty
COWS and bulls, who tramped and beloved
and gored each other alb night for a lick at
that key On another occasion they chewed
up two flannel shirts and two pairs of draw
ers-my weeks washing left to dry on the
lne-for the sake of the salt in the cloth. OF
course got the clothes back, but they had
been too thoroughly digested to be wearable.
met COW one day running off with my
best coat. She had chewed and partly swal-
lowed the right sleeve. I chased her ant
pulled the coat out of her All this was fol
the sake of the salt in the coat.
Thousands of miners tried to cook a quart
OF dry rice at once. The power of rice t,
swell-and swell when it once fairly gets 81
rapport with hot water, is something mirac
ulous. 1t would fill everything fillable in til,
cabin and keep up never ceasing overflow
over the pots rim. l found Jack Ward once
in his cabin at o'clock in the evening, S,
ladling rice from off his pot. He said he ha,
been thus engaged since O'Clock, and the en-,
was not yet. Everything hollow in the house
was full of half boiled rice Jack hat
bought whole sack. He carried it bacl
next day to the Indian Bar store am.
exchanged it for other provision, remarkinl
that he thought pound would last him TO.
the remainder of his days.
The first eggs we had We're from the Far
ralone Islands, situated in the ocean about
fifty miles from San Francisco They were
laid by sea gulls and "murs," a black bird
with red bill about the size of q half
grown hen. These eggs are about twice the
size OF hens product The guls color theit
eggs brown. The "murs' put on mottle o.
blue, white and black. They are in taste
tishy. We did not taste much fish in the first
eggs because we were hungry for eggs. But
the second panned out piscatorialIy as much as
was agreeable, and by the time you reached
the third you could hardly tell whether it
was porpoise or eggs you We're eating.
Most miners at first had crude ideas as tc
the amount of provisions they should buy TO,
times and seasons. Mike Barton came ont.
day in October to the Hawkins Bar store and
SAID he wanted to lay in a stock of grub TO,
the winter. Mike had struck a rich "pot
hole" on Gawley's point. A "pot holen ma,
be two or three feet deep and as round and
even az stove pipe. Some loose
stone lying on the bed rock, and turned
Tor countless ages by a whirlpool, bores
it. Then it fills up with gravel and gold
dust Mike had pickle Jars full of gold dus,
buried about his cabin. He kept a keg of
brandy on free tap for his friends. Mike was
rich for the first time in his life, and life for
hum without plenty of whisky hadn't much
in it,
Said the storekeeper to Mike. "Give nc
your list Oh provision for the winter.n Mike
hesitated- II guess said he at last UNI
have a sack Of -four, sack of potatoes ton
pounds Of pork, five pounds of coffee threa
of whisky '0iie'
:. On Fourth of July Bob Gardiner gave a
dinner mt his STORE On Su,ol., N 49, q